Friday, December 11, 2009

I hope you feel better about yourself having yelled at me and my kids tonight. You told me to get that "big kid" out of the play area. He's two years younger than your daughter that was pushing around mine. How do I know she was pushing around my daughter? Caleb is very just. He sees things in black and white. He saw your daughter push mine and he went over to her and told her to tell Eva that she was sorry. I'm sure it looked a little menacing. My kid is big for his age. Would you have reacted the same way if my kid was white? I don't really want to go there, but I think I just did.

I tried to explain to you that he is only six and has autism. I tried to explain to Caleb that it isn't his job to make your daughter say she is sorry. I tried to comfort Eva after being pushed around by your kid that is twice her age (although only a little bit bigger). All the while you're yelling at Caleb to get away which is just making him more upset.

I felt bad about the whole situation. It didn't have to go down like that. Pushing happens. Sometimes my kids are the offenders and we do our best to apologize and fix the situation. Sometimes they are the ones that get pushed. We do our best to forgive and be nice. Things didn't escalate until you started getting after my son. Let's take care of our own, okay? I wouldn't have been in your daughter's face for what happened whether it was on purpose or not.

We got out of there as quickly as we could. Caleb cried the whole way home and kept mentioning the yelling man and saying that he didn't want him (the yelling man) to be mad at him. It's possible you're not giving tonight's incident another thought, but I am. I'm proud to have a son that looks after his little sister (even though I admit we need to work on his methods) and tries his best to do the right thing.

oh Christy. I'm so sorry you were all subject to that "man" -- I do think you handled it well, and hopefully you think so, too. What a disheartening interaction. (That's a euphemism for "what a jerk/expletive he is.")